Check The Resale [on KS Friday]

Posted on March 10, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Although Rothko lived modestly for much of his life, the resale value of his paintings grew tremendously in the decades following his suicide.”

The premise of this sentence made my jammies bunch-up. This wiki entry might have been written about Van Gogh. “Lived modestly” is a euphemism for “poor.” My favorite stereotype: the poor artist.

William Blake also lived modestly; he’d be shocked at the “resale value” of his work now. Nothing brings valuation to an artist’s work like the sudden end of the supply. Blake’s life came to a natural conclusion, so at least there’s that.

How do we know something has value? Resale, of course. Commodity. Soul reduced to a bottom line.

.003 percent of the nation’s budget goes to the National Endowment for the Arts. Valuation. If you desire to truly understand the phrase, “lived modestly,” visit your local not-for-profit arts organization. They’ll heap sincere gratitude upon you if you donate a ream of paper.

As an exercise in understanding soul, ask an actor or painter or dancer or composer the most obvious question: why do you do it?

Their answer will have nothing to do with resale value or commodity. Keep in mind, that doesn’t mean that they don’t want to be paid. Imagine Van Gogh’s answer. Or Mark Rothko’s. Emily Dickinson’s. Wouldn’t you love to know what they knew, see what they saw? Attempting to stand in their shoes, to see what they saw, is the reason that their resale value is so high. They connect us to something greater than commodity.

A caution: the next time you ask yourself, “What’s it all about?” be careful to direct your question to your inner Mary Oliver rather than your inner Elon Musk. They serve remarkably different gods.

My favorite quote of late: “And while a hundred civilizations have prospered (sometimes for centuries) without computers or windmills or even the wheel, none have survived a few generations without art.” David Bayles & Ted Orland, Art & Fear

.003%. That equates to an amount far less than Jeff Bezos’ tax bill. As a percentage, that’s much more than Kerri gets paid for a single spin of one of her pieces on your favorite streaming service (.000079 of a cent). Spotify, Pandora, and the rest are making out like bandits while the independent artists continue to “live modestly.”

What’s the real value of a nation that so desperately undervalues its art? I guess we’ll just have to wait for the postmortem resale.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about ROTHKO

every breath/as it is © 2004 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Perspective | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Find The Universe [on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 11, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative


“There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” ~ Vincent Van Gogh

I don’t know why but Van Gogh is lately on my mind. He died at age 37. Most of his paintings came through him in the last few years of his life.

He wrote letters to his brother. That’s why we have so many of his words. His contemporaries thought he was mad. They had plenty of evidence of his mania so that was what they saw. Crazy Vincent making crazy paintings. Nothing serious. Swirls of color in an age of dreary.

Only a crazy man would assert that artistry is to love other people, right?

As a young man he was an art dealer and his experiences in the market drove him to become a missionary in Belgium. The art market drove him to religion and he found religion so depressing that he started to paint. This, of course, is my telling of the tale.

Like Vincent, run to the edge of society. Run to the very margins, turn around and look. What do you see?It’s enough to make anyone turn away from sane society and start painting swirls of color. You’re certainly crazy if you consider society and its politics sane. Right?

Vincent painted and moved further out, beyond the margins. Beyond the power games and posturing. The pretending-to-be. He left behind the Joneses. He found entire universes in simple things: sunflowers, the night sky. Bowls of blueberries.

He must, at the very end, have turned and looked back, again. This time seeing through the eyes of a painter. Was it wishful thinking that he saw artistry as love? Was it a prayer for humanity?

Oscar Wilde, Vincent’s contemporary, a man brutalized by the society that once adored him, wrote, “Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.” Oscar tried to live on the margin and in the center, all at the same time.

Love makes us giddy. It helps us drop our pretense and gaming. I think Vincent saw, not through the lens of madman, but life without a lens., into pure life, pure love. Swirls of color. Entire universes in bowls of blueberries and in other people. Artistry.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BLUEBERRIES

from the deep archive: Bass Player, 24x48IN

bass player © 2002 david robinson

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Sing Red! [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on December 8, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

We were awake much of the night so we ate bananas and talked. Our conversation rambled over miles and covered acres of territory. In the wee-hours, Kerri explained to me the compositional elements of a symphony, the placement of a solo in a piece, and the foundational support offered by the other instruments. In other words, it takes a village to raise a solo.

There’s a famous story of Leonardo Da Vinci, paintbrush in hand, staring all day at his mural-in-progress. Finally, after hours of staring, he approached the wall and added to his composition a single brushstroke. If you are a painter you understand that the story is not about the single brushstroke but where it was placed. Color lives or dies relative to other color. Leonardo spent his day assessing relationships.

We are new gardeners. It may seem silly to expert growers, those who’ve been around the farm a time or two, that through the fall, we jumped out of bed every morning, ran to the kitchen, to see our cherry tomatoes. When we pulled the plants at the frost, the vines were laden with green tomatoes. Not to worry, Kerri told me; put the little green orbs together in a sack (ours landed in Tupperware and never left because we delighted in watching them) and they will make the journey to red. They’d help each other to ripen. And so it was. Each day the palette changed until, one day, the entire tomato choir sang red. I am filled with wonder.

It is a cliche’ that every great journey begins with a single step. A single step and lots of encouragement. A single step and a team of support. Explorers need financing. Too often we place the accent on the single player and ignore the symphony. We get a big kick out of the crowds of individuals standing in line to stand atop of Mt. Everest, thrusting their hands like Rocky Balboa in the very-thin-air, playing conquerer of the mountain, forgetting that a Sherpa carried their gear, set up their tent, cooked their food, set their ropes, tended their wounds, warmed their tea, hauled away their waste and sometimes carried their bodies back down when they couldn’t make the round trip.

No one walks this walk alone. Individualism is like Leonardo’s brushstroke: it only works if it furthers community, when it makes life better for all. How’s that for a paradox!

We are tomatoes, all. Green and small by ourselves. But when brought together in our little Tupperware crossroads, red, red, red, red, red!

read Kerri’s blog post about TOMATOES!

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Follow The Trail [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on October 1, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

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Max Ehrmann died. His poem, Desiderata, was mostly unknown. He did not write it for fame and few poets, unless they are delusional, write for fortune. Desiderata found its way to the light because it struck a chord, people shared it. Today it is known and treasured all over the world.

Vincent Van Gogh died. His paintings were mostly unknown. They were mostly rejected. Only one of his paintings sold in his lifetime.  He did not paint them to increase his fame and few painters, unless they are delusional, paint for fortune. His paintings found their way to the light because they struck a chord, people sought them out. Today, they are known and treasured all over the world.

No one knows the impact of their work. No one controls the ripples that they send. Everyone knows the truth of their intention, the source from which they act. Max Ehrmann wrote his poems during a life that spanned world wars. Vincent Van Gogh endured a lifetime of intense internal warfare and painted in response. Amidst the intensity of chaos they reached for more eternal things.

John told me that my job was to paint the paintings, not to determine how they are seen or received. In this age in which the arts have been detached from all things sacred, I sometimes feel our poems, our music, our dance, our paintings serve as a popcorn trail that point, not in the direction of personal gain or achievement, but to the soul’s home. That place where we sit together and experience the bigger things that live beyond words or names, beyond the nonsense and power games. The popcorn trail reminds us amidst the fighting to stand back and remember that neither side in any fight wins. Not really. The oppressed becomes the oppressor. Ripples and time.

For perspective, look to the stars at night. Poets and painters try to touch the vastness. The popcorn trail reminds us not to forget the center.

 

read Kerri’s blog post on DESIDERATA

 

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Transcendence, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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